


Masked Affection

by rufeepeach



Series: Not Quite Yet [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle and Rumpelstiltskin share a bed, and yet she worries that he’s still holding back and hiding from her. She attempts to remedy this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masked Affection

Belle had been interested by the golden thread Rumpelstiltskin spun from straw since the moment she first saw it. She liked to watch the way it shimmered as it was formed, the gleam of it in the sunlight. He caught her watching, sometimes, and laughed at her, sent her scurrying to some new task or other.  
  
It grew to a fascination when, a month after her arrival in the castle, when he allowed her to run a piece through her fingers, and feel the texture.  
  
It was softer than she’d expected - she’d thought it’d be wiry, sharp, like the copper strands used by the craftsmen back home - and smooth, like silken thread slipping against her skin, but stronger, more resistant. He let her keep that one loop, seemingly a little bemused and perhaps even pleased by how it so thoroughly enthralled her.  
  
She wasn’t sure why she enjoyed playing with it so much, but whenever she became bored, or so wrapped up in a book that she needed to fiddle to keep her free hand occupied, she brought her loop of golden thread out and played with it. She looped it between her fingers or around her wrist, tied the ends together and spun it around her index finger as she thought.  
  
One day, when he was feeling especially playful, Rumpelstiltskin took a coil of the thread and made it dance for her, the magic in the metal and in his fingers one and the same.  
  
She had squealed and cried out in delight, especially when he giggled and clapped his hands together, and had the threads come and brush against her cheeks and her arms.  
  
That was the strangest thing: when he held the threads in his power, made them weave and dance with his will alone, the touch of them against her skin was as if his own fingertips - softer than his scales, she had found when he pulled her hand from his potions, when he batted her hand away the day she spilt one all over his ledger - were softly stroking her skin.  
  
She had stilled all over, made some other little sound, the sensation too close to what she imagined similar caresses may feel like coming from his own hands.  
  
Not that she imagined such things often, of course. It wasn’t as if she spent more nights than not in her newly-acquired bedroom imagining how it would be to have her employer beside her, with her hands in the curls of his hair and his lips - they would be soft and pliant, perhaps, or maybe hard and rough as the rest of him - against every inch of her skin.  
  
Because that would be shameful, and inappropriate, and wrong on more levels than she cared to name.  
  
And still, the threads were only simple metal when the magic left them. She locked her thoughts away in the back of her mind, and they muddled along as they had before, in their odd little loop of friendship and fealty.  
  
And then, out of nowhere, things changed.  
  
She kissed him in passing, really. She didn’t think twice about it.  
  
The old git wasn’t going to start it himself, after all. She had sat on his dining room table, leaned down to him, talked about love being layered and disavowed all other commitments.  And yet all he did is steeple his fingers and stare at her, as if he’d say more, as if he’d set her free or keep her forever or just stare at her for all eternity, perched before him and smiling.  
  
“But um, you were going to tell me about your son!” she said, brightly, in an attempt to break some of the tension that had settled. His stare was as unnerving as it was intoxicating, and she thought she’d die if he didn’t blink soon.  
  
“I ah…” he shook his head, breaking the long, still moment, “I lost him, there’s not much more to tell, really.”  
  
“And since then…” she stopped, sighed, because it was too late and she couldn’t drop another hint, couldn’t embarrass herself anymore. Nothing could happen, and she wasn’t going to push it any further, “You’ve been… alone?” she finished, lamely.  
  
“Indeed,” he nodded, but that far-off, dazed look still hung on his features.  
  
She leaned down, and he leaned up, and they were kissing before she could even think about what she was doing.  
  
She could love him, she thought, as his mouth caressed hers slowly, sweetly, and they broke away with a little shared sigh. She could love him, some day, somehow.  
  
He watched her for a moment, before he rose from his seat, his eyes wide and unbelieving, and his hands trembled as they came up to cup her face. She held his wrist, smiled reassuringly, nodded that this was okay, that he didn’t have to be afraid.  
  
And then he was all over her, hauling her mouth back to his to kiss her roughly, tongue slipping between her lips as she gasped. It felt like he was trying to devour every part of her, and she could do little more than bring her hands to clutch his shoulders as he removed all thought from her mind.  
  
He broke away from her, smiled down, the most human smile she’d ever seen on his lips, and she wondered how hard he had to be trying for the effect to be achieved.” Belle,” he said, almost choking on her name, and for all that his hands had come to comb through her hair, and her lips were swollen from his kisses, he sounded as if he were asking for her permission.  
  
She just nodded, pressed another kissed to his lips, tried to tell him in actions what where words failed her: that this was okay; that they were okay, and the world kept spinning and she wasn’t going to push him away.  
  
She kissed him again, and again, and stilled the little flutter of unease when his hands swept over her, buried her little noises in his mouth and her hands in his hair.  
  
When he took her to bed, only an hour later, she loved him a little for how he tried to be gentle, warm and human, even as she assured him again and again that it was alright, that she didn’t mind, that she cared as much for the monster as she did the man. That nothing he could do would hurt her, because he was trying so hard to be kind.  
  
It was a small lie, really, and one smoothed away by the smile on his face, by the truth that she did enjoy when - with his length buried in her and his teeth scraping her neck - he growled into her skin and left his mark behind, unable to hold the illusion when the passion truly gripped him.  
  
His touch started bonfires beneath her skin, and brought mewling, crying sounds from her throat. She fell apart for him, and somehow he taught her to both delight in the wreckage and then to put the pieces back together, and start over again.  
  
They settled into a new routine: she still cleaned, he still spun, and in daylight hours they were maid and master as they had always been.  
  
But at night, in the darkness of her chambers, he shed his leathers and his snarling, biting, trilling laughter, and tried so hard to be a lover, to please her with touches and kisses in darkness. He never let her love him in daylight; not a single candle burned when he took her in her bed, or lay beside her after.  
  
A month after their first kiss, Belle broke the cycle.  
  
She came to him as he spun, and ran her fingers through the gold thread as it appeared, loving the warmth and magic that sang through it as it came fresh from the wheel. He smiled to her as she did, and she smiled back, ran her hand up, counter to the movement of the reeling thread, to touch his.  
  
“Dearie,” he murmured, warningly, as if to remind her of the rules. They did not touch in daylight, not the way she wished: he could not pretend to be a normal man, the prince she knew he thought she must desire, not when she could see so closely the evidence to the contrary.  
  
“Yes?” she questioned, innocently, without moving an inch.  
  
“Does my maid require something?” he asked, and he must have been getting desperate, terrified, if he was referring to her by her job description.  
  
“My master neglects me,” she replied, ducking her head to look at him through her eyelashes. She had found books in the library, of course she had, and some of them mentioned ideas such as this. She did not miss his intake of breath, the shake to his fingers and darkness creeping into his eyes. She felt a thrill of triumph: success.  
  
“Ah,” he fidgeted, stood, as if he had no idea of how to hold his body or move his hands. And that would not do: she had her ideas, knew what he needed, and he wasn’t helping right now, “Does he?”  
  
“Indeed,” she nodded, taking his hands in hers and running her thumbs over the backs.  
  
“And ah…” he glanced from their joined hands to her face and back again, and she could almost see his thoughts scrambling to catch up, “How does my maid suggest this be remedied?”  
  
“I think you know,” she whispered, leaning up to breathe against his mouth. She felt awfully foolish, laying it on so thick, but she needed a reaction. She needed for him to understand that she could stand to look at him, could desire him just as well in daylight as in darkness. “You know exactly what to do; you’re just too scared to do it.”  
  
He was frowning, staring at her, and she decided to give one last push. If he didn’t understand her idea, even after that, then she was still too much a lady to spell it out.  
  
She broke one hand of contact and took the last length of thread to come from the wheel, wrapping it absently around one wrist. She caught his eye as she did, and watched his glance dart from wrist to eyes and back again.  
  
Then she sighed, dropped both his hand and the thread, and said, “Never mind, it was a foolish thought.”  
  
She walked away, cursing her own stupid bravery, cursing his thickheaded cowardice, cursing the world and everything in it, only to be stopped by his touch on her arm.  
  
She turned, but he was still halfway across the room. Her wrist was once more encircled with the thread, which had coiled and knotted itself around her arm. It felt like his hand was holding her; it felt incredible.  
  
He reeled the thread around his own fingers as he approached her, and she stood entirely still, excitement and desire and victory and just the tiniest, most wonderful little thrill of fear dancing and coursing through her.  He grinned, his monster’s smile, and she saw that he understood the game.  
  
He lifted the midsection of the thread before his eyes, and she watched with unconcealed interest as he pinched it between both thumbs and forefingers, breaking it with no more than a breath.  
  
Her other wrist was wrapped the same as the first and he took her by the two strands of gold, walked backwards as he lead her to the table.  
  
“Now, dearie,” he said, quietly, “You can break these threads with just a thought. Wish to be free and you shall be; never doubt it.”  
  
There was something odd in his words, something heavy and real, and she wondered not for the first time if he would let her go home, if she asked. She wondered whether, if he let her go, she would ever return.  
  
She had believed, once, that given an open window and leave to climb through it, she would do so and run without a backward glance.  
  
The line had become blurry the moment his lips met hers, the moment she learnt what it was to moan and sigh and clench against him, and crave him inside her as much as she needed her next breath.  
  
She nodded, once, and smiled, “Yes, master.”  
  
It had had such an effect before, she thought she would try the title again, see how it worked a second time. He growled, the monster’s mask slipping back over him, and she shivered anew. She adored him in the dark, when he tried to be a man for her, tried to be gentle and easy with her, but this was something new. This was exciting and different, new and special in an entirely different way.  
  
She couldn’t stand the self-loathing in his eyes, when he failed to convince her or himself of his humanity. She was coming to love the monster as well as the man, and even if she couldn’t articulate or admit it yet, she could show him in other ways.  
  
“Get up on the table.” He said, and she hurried to obey, jumping up to sit as she had a hundred times before.  
  
He pressed one hand to her collarbone, scratched his fingers there, and pressed gently, encouraging her to lie down flat and stare at the ceiling, with her legs dangled over the end.  
  
“Stay still, dearie,” he instructed, as he flicked a hand and the thread moved once more. She yelped, a tiny sound, as the strings pulled down and under the table, spreading her arms wide, and she heard an audible little snick as they joined.  
  
She pulled, testing, and she couldn’t move her arms from their spreadeagled position.  
  
She stared at him - this was a little further than she’d imagined he’d actually go, but she was loving every moment of it - and he smirked at her. “Now, the ankles.”  
  
Her eyes widened - she decided to play the blushing maiden, if he would be the ravishing monster - and he gigged at her, his impish, eerie giggle, as he tapped her on the nose. She tried not to laugh; it wasn’t funny, not really, but his laughter was infectious.  
  
He took one foot in his hand, and bound it the same way he had her wrist. The feeling of his fingers - for it felt, for all that it was metal, like the threads were his own hands holding her still - on both her wrists and ankles was intense and strange, and she felt her heart rate quicken.  
  
He wrapped the two threads bound to her feet around the sides of of his high-backed chair, dragging her knees apart, and there was that little clicking sound as they sealed together.  
  
She tested those too, and found that she could not move. She was essentially laid out like a three-course meal, spread for his pleasure, and she felt another bolt of desire run through her at the hungry smile on his face. He ran his eyes up and down over her form, and despite being fully clothed Belle couldn’t help but feel exposed, vulnerable.  
  
Spread helpless before a monster, and she loved every moment of it.  
  
She wondered if that meant she was corrupted, unclean or somehow tainted. But she was never going to leave the estate anyway, and she felt more alive - more herself - here in the castle with Rumpelstiltskin than she’d ever felt with Gaston’s arms around her.  
  
Rumpelstiltskin ducked from view, and Belle almost laughed aloud as she felt him attempt to move beneath her leg, to sit in the chair. He hadn’t thought this through, apparently, and the tension broke as easy as sugar glass.  
  
They were friends, even if she couldn’t quite love him yet, and she had trusted him with her body almost every night for a month now. He was still Rumpelstiltskin, even if today he was more the monster than the man. They were two halves of the same coin, and she cared for him either way.  
  
He reappeared with a broad, triumphant grin, and she giggled. He seemed to take that as a challenge, and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her calf, scraping his teeth against her as he pulled away.  
  
She shivered, squirmed a little, and suddenly it wasn’t so funny.  
  
“You felt neglected, dearie?” he asked, as he pressed another kiss to the side of her knee, and snaked his tongue to lick along the underside.  
  
He stopped in his progress, awaiting an answer, “Yes,” she replied, her voice strained and a little hoarse. She breathed out deeply in relief when he started again, this time planting a kiss to the inside of her thigh.  
  
He gently lifted her skirts, and pooled them around her hips. She hadn’t taken to wearing her petticoats and bloomers since she started work here, especially since she and Rumpelstiltskin had begun to share a bed, and she suddenly realised how easily he could reach the most secret parts of her, without the resistance of even a few layers of cotton.  
  
Her heart thudded in her ears as he felt him scoot forward on the chair, his head at just the right height and angle to bury between her legs with just a thought. And yet he waited, leaving slow, teasing licks to her inner thighs, refusing to go any further.  
  
She wanted to reach down, to caress the back of his head the way she had the last time he’d tried this, to run her fingers through his hair and encourage him that everything was alright.  
  
But unless she wished to be freed entirely, for the moment to end, she had to remain still and wait for him to do as he would. It was maddening, and she finally made an impatient little noise of protest, as he scraped his teeth against the inside of her leg and still remained no closer to her centre.  
  
“Something wrong, dearie?” he asked, smoothing his hands down the tops of her thighs in an oddly theatrical manner.  
  
“Please…” if he wished her to beg, then she would happily comply. “Up… please…”  
  
“Oh,” he smirked and she felt it against her skin, “You mean…” he delved in, and swiped the flat of his tongue right up, dragged over the soaked fabric of her knickers, and she made an embarrassing little keening sound as he did so.  
  
“Yes! That!” she nodded, eyes slammed closed, and heard his little laugh. His voice had lowered, but she felt it was more from distraction than from trying to sound more human on purpose. He did it again, pressing deeper, harder, and she shuddered all over.  
  
Then there was nothing: no hands or tongue or teeth anywhere against her, and she blinked down in protest to see him watching her, intently, like an animal with its prey, or perhaps the most attentive and caring of lovers. She shivered: she couldn’t know if she was looking at the poor, lonely man who lost his son, or the ravaging monster she had heard stories of, who stole her from her father’s castle.  
  
He was both, and he was neither, and the thought made her stomach plummet and her heart race.  
  
“You want… this?” he asked, and even with the high tone back, his voice was somehow cracked, broken and splintering, as he gestured to her bonds and raised skirts, his presence between her spread legs, with one flip of his hand.  
  
“Yes…” she moaned, but it didn’t seem enough for him, so she tried to collect her scattered thoughts and start again, “Yes. I want you, every bit, the dark and the light.”  
  
The bindings around her wrists were suddenly the worst idea in the world: she needed, how she needed, to haul him up against her and stroke his hair, perhaps rock him like a child lost in a storm. There was such disbelief, such doubt and loathing and longing in his expression that, for a moment, her heart broke for him. “Why?”  
  
“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly, her neck aching for craning to look at him, “I just do. Completely and utterly, and all the time.”  
  
He watched her for another moment, silent and frowning, and then nodded, shakily, “Well, dearie, that would make two of us, then.”  
  
She beamed; she couldn’t help it. There was so much more to that sentence than an admittance of attraction, of lust for a warm body after so long in the cold. She was more than a pretty plaything, tied to his table and ready to be devoured. She was as important to him as he was to her, and the thought made her warm and tingling in an entirely different way.  
  
Then, there was a little, theatrical growling sound from Rumpelstiltskin, and her head arched back again as he plunged back between her legs and tugged her underwear down to her knees, broke the lace with just his claws and threw them aside.  
  
She was gasping as those same claws came up to where she was aching, brushed and scraped at the skin there, as his tongue lapped like he was starving and everything was sensation and hot and wet and up and down, never finding a rhythm, never ceasing, the feeling of his claws and teeth and the rough backs of his fingers against her sensitive flesh just the right side of painful. She could feel the heat rushing through her radiating from his tongue and hands and teeth up and through every part of her body, her back arching and hips bucking to meet his mouth.  
  
His hands came from teasing her to hold her hips down and still, and he stopped for a moment, glanced up at her with a smile she’d never seen before on his glistening lips.  
  
It was a secret little smile, sweet and wicked and almost loving, as close to truly happy as she’d ever seen him.  
  
“Still feeling neglected, maid of mine?”  
  
She nodded her head, vigorously, not trusting her voice if she tried to articulate how she felt. If he stood now, released her, danced away and left her like this, then she’d surely die from wanting.  
  
“Ohh, pretty thing,” he crooned, trailing one hand back down between her legs, dragging it up through the moisture collected there. She was so close to release, built to such a high place, that she trembled and keened, her eyes squeezed shut, at just the feeling of one digit against her flesh. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”  
  
He moved back in, cleaved his tongue between her folds so she screamed, found that throbbing little bud of nerves that she found brought so much pleasure and took it between his lips, suckling at it as he pushed one finger up deep inside her, and thrust it in and out in time with flicks of his tongue.  
  
She shook and cried and struggled against the bindings on her wrists and ankles, tried desperately to grab at him, to pull him deeper or perhaps push him away. The sensation was too deep and too intense, slamming into her again and again, the waves of her pleasure roaring through her and shaking her limbs. His hand on her hip held her still, the sensation of his hands through the threads, holding her to the table and her legs apart as if he was everywhere, keeping her grounded as stars burst and reformed behind her eyes, her climax tearing through her, dragging breathless, unrestrained little cries from her throat.  
  
He didn’t stop, kept licking and sucking and scraping at her, dragged out the sensation to an almost painful degree until, at last, she collapsed against the table, boneless and breathless and trembling all over.  
  
He pulled away from her, and her eyes blinked open to see him licking his lips and smiling.  
  
He leaned down over her, kissed her so that she could taste herself on his lips. He traced his hands over the threads around her wrists, and all of a sudden they were slack and dripping from her limbs. She moved gratefully, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to hold him against her, so she could kiss him deeper, and wind her fingers in his soft hair.  
  
“See?” she breathed, as they parted, “Doesn’t always have to be dark.”  
  
“Hmm,” he made a pleased little noise, nuzzled her throat affectionately, “Perhaps not.”  
  
She smiled in triumph, and her heart gave an odd little squeeze when his hands came to wrap around her back, and he drew her up to sit, so that he was back to standing and her legs hung off the edge of the table once more, her skirts arranged demurely. As if he hadn’t just teased and licked her into a frenzy, and torn screams of pleasure from her throat.  
  
But his arms remained around her, and hers came around his shoulders, and their embrace was one more new thing to add to the list.  
  
She wondered if she was, indeed, falling in love with him. Because she knew for a fact that she wouldn’t move even if her legs could be trusted to hold her up, and the affection - aimless and sweet, crafted to do no more than show her that he wanted her close - of his lips on her neck melted her heart and made her smile like nothing else in the world.


End file.
